NEW YORK HERALD:—

Automatic Invention Operated by Secret Mechanical Power Is Tested at Stapleton, S. I.

A working model of an automatic machine gun which, it is said, will discharge bullets over a range of a mile or more at the rate of one million an hour, with a muzzle velocity of more than 3,000 feet per second, and operated by a secret mechanical power, was demonstrated yesterday by the inventor, Friedrich Bangerter.

The model, which was built to shoot a three-eighth-inch bullet, was mounted behind a partition in the factory at 79 Broad St., Stapleton, S. I. All the motive parts were covered by a tarpaulin, and the machine was run by an electric motor, connected with the gun by a belt.

The muzzle was pointed through a hole in a partition, and the observers having gathered behind a screen, the motor was started.

The target, a pine board, was placed sixty feet away. As the motor began to hum the operator turned a little wheel and a steady stream of bullets poured from the muzzle of the gun like a stream of water from the nozzle of a hose. The target seemed to melt before the eyes as all the missiles struck it, and in about 10 seconds the entire centre of the board had disappeared. This model was built for round bullets, but the inventor says that on a standard make gun, which will have a half-inch bore, conical bullets will be fired and the barrels, of which there will be two, will be rifled.

The principal use of the new gun, according to the inventor’s claim, will be for operating against airships, and, as there is no recoil, he says, the gun can be pointed toward any point of the compass.

NEW YORK TIMES:—

A Wonderful Gun.—A million bullets an hour can be fired without powder.... It really does shoot.... Reporters see wooden targets torn to bits, but the inventor won’t let them see the works.

A gun that can shoot one million bullets per hour at a cost of $20, that uses neither powder nor compressed air, and that fires bullets that do not require shells, was shot for the enlightenment of a delegation of New York reporters yesterday afternoon. The reporters saw the gun shoot, but they were not permitted to see that part of the gun out of which the little steel bullets came with such rapidity. The exhibition was in the factory building at No. 79 Broad street, Stapleton, S. I. In a little room adjoining that in which were placed the reporters was the gun. There were targets made of a series of big boards arranged about a foot behind one in front of it. There were four targets.

At 4 p. m. the shooting began. The first of the targets was dragged into position. A moment later the motor started up, then the bullets started to fly. They riddled the target into a pile of splinters a foot high, and they did it in less than a minute. All in all, it was estimated that 15,000 bullets pierced the targets. Not only the first of the targets was riddled into a shapeless mass, but each of the other three as well.

The reporters were permitted then to enter the gun-room. They saw a motor, from the wheel of which a belt was operated. The belt connected the motor with another wheel, which was a part of the mechanism of the gun, on top of which was a covering out of which the bullets came. They also saw the hoppers on either side of the gun into which the bullets are poured as they are needed. The reporters asked to see the gun in operation. The inventor ordered another target swung into position. There was another whirl and a second storm of bullets struck the target. The fusillade lasted about ten seconds. Again was the target demolished. The

inventor refused to say anything about what was under the covering in the little gun-room.

Wall Street brokers had offered Mr. Bangerter the necessary capital to build a standard size gun, but Mr. Bangerter soon found out that their plans were to get the secret of his invention and take it from him. He therefore separated from these brokers and has had nothing to do with them since. He has kept his secrets and has remained true to the words he declared which were published in the New York World of March 1st, 1908, that if he does not make money out of his invention nobody else shall.

Army officers and scientific men marvelled at the great results of Bangerter’s model gun. Before the tests no one believed in its success, declaring it impossible. Mr. Bangerter has never applied for a patent for this invention, as he intended to sell the secrets to a government, and therefore kept the plans carefully.

Naturally everyone was still skeptical as to the outcome of a standard-size gun, and to show to those who kept an eye on him that impossibilities of yesterday are made the realities of to-day, he centered his mind on another impossibility—his Perpetual Clock—while apparently forgetting his gun for a year.

“Perpetual Motion the Folly of All Ages” has become an eloquent reality.

A crowning result of his strenuous labor on this marvelous clock was the outcome of three other inventions which the studies in a large field of problems have brought to life as his anniversary self-winding clock, his fire alarm and sprinkler apparatus. These inventions and others not here mentioned, owing to lack of space, stamp Friedrich Bangerter as a most unusual and fertile-minded inventor.

His crowning achievement in inventing that marvel of marvels—

BANGERTER’S PERPETUAL TIME CLOCK

has therefore a background of brilliant accomplishments, profound studies and many natural abilities behind a work that shall ever establish his fame as inventor of The Perpetual Clock.